What Jeff Zucker Is Telling CNN Staff to Do Differently

New CNN Worldwide President Jeff Zucker is telling CNN’s reporters and producers to do things differently — he wants them to broaden their conception of news and to widen their range of topics on air, reports the New York Post.

That admonition led to CNN’s decision to air Beyonce’s Super Bowl press conference on Thursday, when she sang the National Anthem to prove she could sing live, following allegations of lip syncing, the story notes. Other networks stuck to political news that day.

Zucker also recently told producers of Anderson Cooper’s "AC360" to scrap a show they had been working on and replace it with a panel discussion about Lance Armstrong, after he heard about Oprah Winfrey’s sit-down interview with the disgraced cyclist.

“Zucker also alerted the Los Angeles talent agencies — even prior to his first call with reporters about landing the new job — to say he’s in the market for TV hosts,” the story reports. “And before the ink was dry on his business cards, Zucker named ABC News’ Chris Cuomo as one of his morning-show hosts. Erin Burnett, a darling of Zucker’s from her CNBC days, will likely be co-host.”

CNN’s new morning show is being readied to debut in April, just a month before the upfront buying season begins, the story notes.

Commenting on the changes Zucker is implementing at the cable news channel, one CNN veteran is quoted in the piece saying: “He’s done more in the past two weeks than anyone has done in the past two years.”

One Comment

hey zucker, you have two channels, HLN and CNN, why do you have to broadcast the same thing (the Zimmerman/martin closing arguments)on both? there is real news happening and you don’t report it. how about reporting news like you used to over there?